Ellipsis
by thousand-leaf
Summary: Ellipsis; noun: the indefinite continuation of an irrational number. Because like diamonds and love, an ellipsis is forever. [AU]
1. Chapter 1

Cheers darlin'  
>Here's to you and your lover boy<p>

* * *

><p><strong>Ellipsis<strong>

"Are you nervous?" he asked, gaze distant.

"No. Well…maybe a little." She fidgeted with the cap of a black magic marker, unscrewing and screwing it back into place. The smell of sweat and cardboard filled her nose. It had been unusually hot for a spring day. She could feel the air's dry haze radiate through panes of dust and muted curtains.

"I'm more excited than anything."

"Yeah—fresh start."

"Exactly."

He felt something drop at the conviction in her tone—some ball of wholeness, an ember of bliss once housed in his heart. His blanket of security had been unraveling since the day she first told him. First, in the corner of blue thread held by sticky sand castles. He didn't mind so much initially—it was inevitable. Things got old, they fell apart. But when its folds of yellow camellias and midnight secrets tore under the pressure of every careless word, he cared. Maybe that was the drop, the feeling of complete emptiness. Maybe his blanket had finally reached its end.

"Can I visit?" The question was hesitant.

She smiled and looked him in the eye. "Of course."

* * *

><p><strong>1<strong>

I was never much of a socialite, never heavily regarded—or highly, for that matter. I was more than comfortable, three paces past well-known and famous. I had every connection and need at the snap of a finger. I was born spoiled, raised by a team hired to love me. But a piece of elite Zanarkandian youth? No—my blood was brewed in too much controversy. I was the product of tattoos and anger. I was stamped with a seal of disapproval before any personality, any ability to defend myself, could develop. They say children are our world's greatest treasures, but I guess that doesn't apply to children born into broken families—families exploited for the health of another's wallet.

I knew a girl, though. A girl born surrounded by a nation of love. If she wasn't a piece of regality she was the whole plate. She was art held by the hands of hope and prayer, showcased behind a pane of glass for so few to personally experience. She was the only human being blind to my misconceptions, the only person to have ever loved me, really loved me. I mean, sure, I had parents. I don't doubt my mother cared about me. You could say she even loved me. But there was always a level of distraction in her words when she spoke to me, always a slight pause between syllables to remind me that I was second place. Even as a kid I could feel it. I knew I was an accident she had to learn to accept. She didn't love me by choice and if she could, well, I would bet more money than I have that she wouldn't.

"Don't be so dramatic," Yuna said, arms propped behind her back, legs free in warm water.

"It's not dramatic—it's the truth," I countered. "Yesterday, I literally had an entire conversation with myself without any response. Nothing—zilch! She was oblivious, completely and utterly oblivious. It always happens when my dad's not around. She just…shuts down."

Yuna giggled lightly. I frowned at the expression. My ego was bruised enough.

"What did you say to yourself?" she asked in a hum as light as the air around us.

The question tugged at the corners of my mouth. Of course she wasn't laughing at my pain, she was making it better. That's what she did, she turned my depressing laments into puppies and kittens. I always found myself forcing back a smile when she spoke, half-hoping its absence would mean the end to the heartbeat drowning out my senses.

My legs kicked through the water beneath the dock. "I said that Yuna is the luckiest girl in the world to have me as a friend."

She cocked her head to me through amused disapproval. "Oh, am I?"

"Yes," I beamed.

Her smirk deepened. She looked to the water before us, inhaling a draft of leaves and sand. I was sixteen, she was just a year younger. We were at a time in our lives when meeting at that lake somehow unseen by the rest of the world had become routine. We were happy, we were careless, with her version of the word peppered in a little more maturity than mine. After all, she had always aged a few years faster, always walked one step ahead of others. It wasn't arrogant, probably not even intentional, it was just _her_. She had a natural stride I could never keep up with.

"I would miss you, Tidus." She moved her hands onto her lap, face lowered to the details of her skirt. "Maybe you're mother wouldn't miss you if you disappeared, but I would."

Five years have passed since that day, three since she left, two weeks since she came back, and seven minutes since her hand left the back of my arm to excuse herself from our exchange—brief and awkward as it was. I watched her walk the length of the room in a trail of gold fabric, into the crook of a pinstriped arm, with every word I meant to say hanging in the air.

"Maybe if you take a picture it'll last longer." Rikku appears to my right, quiet as a predator. She's dressed in an emerald cocktail dress, nude shoes, and tight ponytail.

"Hm?" I reply.

"Yuna." She points to her cousin with champagne in hand. "You've been staring at her all night."

"Isn't that what you're supposed to do—gawk at the bride?"

"She's not the bride _yet_ and is that a hint of jealousy I hear?"

I scoff. "I'm not jealous."

Blond eyebrows pull up in skepticism. I notice Rikku's makeup is different tonight—more heavy than usual. A shade of bubblegum pink coats her lips, her flush is a bit deeper, her cheekbones a bit brighter, and dramatic winged eyeliner magnifies the black swirls of her eyes. It's pretty, she looks pretty, but I think I prefer Rikku a little less polished. It matches her personality better.

"It's just weird, you know?" I revert back to the original question. "She's only twenty-one. How are you supposed to know who you want to spend the rest of your life with at twenty-one?"

Rikku shrugs at the question. "I'm only eighteen."

"I could never imagine asking a girl to marry me now."

"No offense, Tidus, but you're not exactly the poster boy for monogamy."

My eyes narrow. "I've had girlfriends."

Her hand pats my shoulder as if to say "whatever helps you sleep at night."

"All right, all right." I shrug off her sympathy. "There's an open bar here and if I'm not drunk by the end of the night it's been a wasted one."

"Champagne's good." She tilts her flute; I cringe in response.

"I was thinking of something a little stronger."

"If you get plastered tonight and make a fool of yourself Yunie will not be very happy."

I should be used to her response by now, I've been hearing it for years. There's always a warning, a wave of alert, not always spoken, but hidden behind sharpened eyes and long exhales. Sometimes it's done out of concern, but more often than not it's pity. Pity for me, my behavior, the horrible life I must have endured as a kid without any say. I am the way that I am because I was forced into it, subjected to it. Poor, poor me, they say. But I still find myself offended at the warning, at the expectations based on nothing.

"Sometimes the apple _does_ fall far from the tree," I voice my thoughts. I mean for my tone to be as hard as it sounds.

"Tidus," she replies through an sigh. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that."

Despite my desire to stay stubborn, I know she didn't. "It's okay." I nudge her with my elbow. "Cheer up, I'm just being a baby."

"You are a bit of a baby, aren't you?"

I force a laugh. "So which way to the bar?"

She points to the opposite end of the room through a hall connected to an area meant for appetizers and bad first dates. A long metal bar stands against the back wall framed by an impressive collection of top-shelf alcohol. I order Bourbon neat, because I'm a man and that's apparently what we do. The bartender repeats my order with a tumbler trailing to my side. The drink brings me back to my father's particular interest in whiskey, and his lazy attempt to hide it from me. He made stealing alcohol easy back in the day. Bottles were littered everywhere, some half-used, some never touched. I was the guy in high school who catered parties for free thanks to his famous dad's addiction.

"Party boring you that much, eh?" a thick Besaidian accent booms over the bar's music.

"The tab is open for the night—I couldn't resist," I reply.

Wakka takes a seat next to me, onto a bar stool of metal legs and teal suede fabric. The whole venue is a mix of masculine severity, high ceilings, dark lighting, and sudden bursts of the same awful shade of blue. It's a restaurant I've never been to, but evidently popular.

"Lulu sent me to get her a drink. What the hell do women normally order anyway?"

"I wouldn't put Lulu as one to order something normal. Try blood? Venom? Your tears?"

He shoves me and I nearly spill my drink on the person to my right. "Hey!" I cry, rubbing my suit to soothe the pain and wrinkles. "I'm only kidding, geez. I don't know—try a martini or something."

"And what are you drinking?" He peers into my glass.

"Bourbon." I take a deep sip. It tastes like high school.

I hear Wakka order domestic beer and a glass of wine. Of all the things, I think, but I guess that's Lulu and Wakka—safe and domestic. They've always known exactly what they did and didn't like in life, sticking to a level of comfort some would call boring. After three years of dating, at the respectable ages of twenty-five and twenty-seven, they got married, had a kid two years later, and now live life drinking beer and wine in a modest C-South brownstone, not because they can't afford anything bigger—the Abes pay Wakka well enough—but because they don't want to—as plain and simple as that. In a twisted world of voodoo dolls and black magic they make happiness look effortlessly attainable.

"Nice place, ya?" Wakka pours his beer into a chilled glass. "Yuna sure knows how to pick 'em."

I have to actively concentrate to hear his words. The place is upscale and loud, and I can't tell if I'm in a restaurant or club. A room of conversation fights against the deafening vibrations of surround sound speakers. They quarrel for dominance until my sobriety fades the power trip into one, infuriating source of noise. Though the more private space of the actual party is quieter, it's massive size and vaulted ceilings emphasize every echo of marital enthusiasm and I don't know which annoyance I prefer.

"It's a little loud."

Wakka's laugh cuts through the white noise. "When did you become such a grouch?" he mocks.

He's right—I'm being uncharacteristically grumpy. Truth is, I actually enjoy being the center of attention. I like people and their noise. When you grow up with less than aware parents you're sort of forced to find new ears to a kid, I loved to imprint myself into anyone who walked my way. I didn't necessarily fit into a mold or clique. I was a little bit of everything, well-known for reasons both within and outside my control. Getting drafted straight from high school only added to my extroversion. You can't live through the publicity of blitzball without complete comfort in yourself.

"I'm not," I reply and throw back the rest of my drink. "Let's go back. It's more fun in there."

Wakka and I leave the bar to the main event, moving through dark corridors of spaced off dining rooms. I spot celebrities, socialites, athletes, and oiled politicians. In between the fame dots the rest of Zanarkand's wealth dressed in stiff suits and gowns. From one extreme to another, we enter the party's private dining hall filled with more religious figures than A-East Temple. Yuna's fiancé has infected the entire guest list. Praetors, maestors, and titles in between infiltrate the space from end to end. I move with Wakka to a corner from yesteryear, where people I haven't spoken to since high school huddle under a cloud of familiarity.

"Thank you," Lulu says to Wakka as she takes her wine. Rikku stands next to her sipping the same glass of champagne from before. She, Lulu, and Wakka are the only people I've managed to stay close to over the past three years. It's a funny thing to see a group of such opposite lives remain as tight-knit as we have. They're my version of the dysfunctional family people hate to love.

"I'm _so_ hungry," Rikku states dramatically. "When is this cocktail thing supposed to be over?"

"Should be soon," Lulu says coolly behinds sips of wine. "They've stopped serving the hors d'oeuvres."

Wakka shakes his head. "Tiny cheese and fish eggs—I don't get the point."

"To convince everyone you have class," I say. Lulu shoots me a glare from behind her glass. "I'm kidding! I like caviar."

"We should be grateful to be here," she begins. "An engagement is a huge turning point in somebody's life. To be able to share this with Yuna is an honor."

Rikku and I exchange looks. Lulu isn't one to turn to words when it comes to silencing our annoyances. She's more of the let-me-stare-you-into-cardiac-arrest kind of girl. Luckily, before anyone can reply, the dining chairs fill and we all silently slip to our designated seating.

One long table, rustic and dark, sits twenty-four in the middle of the room. Impressive chandeliers run parallel to the table twenty meters higher, and smaller versions of the same furniture space the perimeter. Yuna and her fiancé sit center, side-by-side with a diffusion of people running left and right, from most to least important, family members to colleagues. Rikku sits to Yuna's right and an older couple, Baralai's parents, his left. I sit diagonal from Yuna—a spot that sparks a bit of arrogance in me. Maybe it's coincidence, maybe there is no real hierarchy to the seating arrangements, but I convince myself otherwise and send my regards to the people cast off to the surrounding tables.

The food comes out in a gradual pace, accumulating from light to heavy. First, the edamame and drinks, then the refills, salads, soups, and more refills. Finally, to Wakka's delight, the main course is presented. I steal glances at Yuna in between bites of ginger lobster and white rice. She sits hidden behind a window of conversation, consumed in Baralai's presence. Three years, I think. This is the night I had envisioned nearly every night for the past three years—seeing Yuna again, hearing her voice, responding back, hungrily making up for lost time. But tonight, three feet from her attention, I don't hear the laughter falling from her smiles, or catch the blue and green eyes veiled under rows of dark lashes. We don't speak over each other anxious to play catch up, or ditch the crowd to run to our lake. None of the naïve scenarios I let consume my mind come into reality tonight. Instead, barely arms length away, I feel farther from Yuna than I ever did living on opposite ends of the world.

I feel the back of my pocket vibrate against my seat. A saved number in the form of one name flashes against the glass of my cell phone. I roll my eyes and end the call. It takes two more rounds of vibrations and mute buttons to finally convince me to answer. I excuse myself from Wakka and Lulu who are seated to my right and escape up the room's imperial staircase to an empty terrace.

"Hello?" I ask, though obviously aware of who it is.

"Bad time?" she counters.

"Is it ever a good time?"

"For the star player of the Zanarkand Abes? I'd say so."

"What do you want, Niki?"

"Just calling to remind you of tomorrow's events." I internally groan at the upcoming lecture by my very talented, annoyingly punctual manager. "You have a seven o'clock wake up call and a car will be at your apartment by eight o'clock to drive you to B-South for your shoot. Then you have a corresponding interview over lunch. The car will take you to the gym afterward for your personal training and then back home. You'll have a few hours to rest and prepare until eight p.m. for the A-East Annual Benefit Ball, hosted by none other than the Zanarkand Abes. I'll have your suit cleaned and pressed in time. It's going to be a long day, Tidus, so please, for the love of good publicity, don't stay out too late tonight."

"You got it boss," I reply through obvious sarcasm.

"Tidus?" I remain silent. "You're okay. Just—just remember that, all right?"

I close my eyes at the sound of her words. "I know," I reply.

"See you tomorrow."

The call drops and I return my phone to my pocket. I feel the bite of fresh air against my face and close my eyes to listen to the sound of Zanarkand's nightlife. The city sings behind me in tones of car exhaust and club speakers filtered by the lapse of the East River below.

"Is the party that boring?" I hear her voice drift behind me. A familiar rush of blood pulses under my skin.

"Why has everyone been asking me that?"

She walks closer to me, the sound of her words gaining intensity. "You've been out here for a while."

"Phone call," I say and catch her eyes for the first time tonight. For the first time in years.

"Is everything all right?"

"Peachy," I smile.

She moves next to me after returning the gesture. Her hands rest on the balcony's railing and blue and green look to the open water before us. A draft moves through the air and she inhales a shiver, moving white hands to her exposed upper arms_._ The night is dipping into winter temperatures and her dress is strapless.

I follow her goose bumps from wrist to shoulder. "You don't have to wait out here for me, Yuna. It's pretty cold out."

"I'm fine." She smiles to reassure me. I roll my eyes in response.

"I know," I say. "You're always fine."

I remove my suit jacket. She's always fine, always capable. She is modest and headstrong and the need to break her barrier creeps through me again as it used to in the past, when she'd break out into frustrations so few ever saw. I place my jacket around her shoulders and she pulls at its lapels, accepting the offer. A paradox of tension and serenity vibrates through our silence. I want to say something but forget how to speak.

"I'm sorry, Tidus," she finally breaks the silence.

I don't say anything.

"I'm sorry for not…for not telling you." Her voice lowers just below the sound of the wind. "I didn't know how to tell you."

"A newspaper," I say after a long pause. "I don't read newspapers, but I walk past them every day in the city. That's how I found out—a newspaper headline." She bites into her bottom lip. "I had no idea you were even dating anyone."

"We met on my birthday." I hear the sting of tears hang to the end of her sentence.

"Last year?"

She shakes her head.

"This year?" I hesitate to continue in hopes of being completely wrong, but she doesn't interject and I've guessed correctly. "That…that was four months ago. You've only known him for four months?"

Her eyes remain locked into mine and this time, she nods.

"Yevon, Yuna, that's fast."

"He's a good guy."

I want to ask her if that's supposed to mean anything to me—to her. I want to ask if being a nice guy obligates her to marry him, if not swearing her life to his will turn the guy into a fiend, but my conscience is active tonight and I refrain from shoving my foot into my mouth.

"The engagement is going to be long," she continues to defend. "We haven't planned anything yet."

"No—you have to get to know each other first." Never mind, my conscience has flown out the window.

Her head lowers and I see a hand move across her cheekbone. I made her cry within five minutes of our first conversation in three years and suddenly, I feel like the worst human being in the world.

"I'm sorry, Yuna." My voice softens ten degrees. I place my hand under her chin to face her toward me and thumb away any persisting tears. Maybe the move is inappropriate and maybe someone with walk outside and get the wrong idea (or the right idea, really), but I don't care. I don't care what anyone who isn't Yuna thinks at the moment, because despite not being able to remember the last time we ever this close, she is and always will be the most important person in my life.

"I didn't mean that. You know, no matter what, if you're happy, I'm happy." She nods and I drop my hands to pull her into a hug. "But next time you decide to get engaged feel free to give me a call, okay?"

Her arms move around me and I feel the vibrations of her laughter on my chest. "Hopefully there is no 'next time,' but I do promise to call...for lots of other reasons."

"Good." I move back, hands resting on her covered shoulders. She smiles up to me the same smile she held the night before she left, when summer choked at our goodbyes and we justified the silence under the fallacy that nothing would change. At least her smile didn't.

"We should go back," she says. I nod, she nods, and neither of us move.

"I missed you." The words come out with a surge of relief, like I had finally let out the knot in my throat suppressing every honest thought.

"I missed you too, Tidus."

I drop my hands from her frame, satisfied with the turn of our conversation. We cross the length of the balcony into the restaurant's second floor, where the sound of the party below carries into the hall's open archways. Yuna stops just before the staircase to hand me back my jacket. She gravitates toward the right handrails, one hand gripping the bar, the other lifting the hem of her dress.

"Need help?" I offer my arm in substitute of the handrail. She wraps her thin arm around my own, sealing the gap between our sides. I smile inwardly at the feel of her next to me. Yuna is in my life again and for now, the burn of torn thread remains peacefully numb.


	2. Chapter 2

**2**

I had never seen Tidus nervous before. For someone who had triggered the emotion in me more often than not I always wondered how he managed through life as coolly as he had. Granted, he was nothing short of passionate, running through every other color of emotional highs and lows when we were kids. He was an open book of too much energy and spirit, always eager to engulf your spark into his fire and claim it for himself. Tidus was a wheel of never-ending momentum, a wheel of precise avoidance for the peg of nervousness. He was never anxious, never doubtful—emotions neither intoxicating nor tranquilizing, but too middle-grounded for his youth.

I let Tidus plant his inane pit of happiness into my heart early on, tending to it when my own hope faltered under the pressures of growing up. I cried, he laughed, I smiled, he laughed again. And when his fire burned too far from enthusiasm to anger I became his aloe, soothing him in ways that could never work on me. He needed my silence, I needed his vibrance. We were opposite and interconnected, light and dark, yin and yang—every clichéd dichotomy between good and evil. We survived childhood through each other's highs and lows.

It had been three years and I think he was nervous. I could hear a ripple of hesitation wave before and after each word that slipped between transmitter and receiver—a slight pause of uncertainty he wasn't used to. My reactions were the pebble to his watery confidence. I kept my voice low, my replies as cool as possible, while internally erupting in insufferable heat. I was sweaty palms and beady foreheads, nervous laughter cut short between moments of too much silence. I was nervous, too.

I gave him a combination of numbers and letters from a part of town he wasn't familiar with, and when he stepped twenty minutes later from the door of a black SUV I knew he was nervous. Stumbles met his path from car to embrace. It warmed my heart to see him falter, to see my nerves paralleled in his own. I lingered into our hug far longer than intended and he dug tan fingers into flesh and blond hair. I giggled at the observation, the revelation that Tidus was human after all—that _I _made him human.

He moved nervously, handsomely, dressed in dark jeans and a black military jacket I swear were molded for his shape. Somewhere between moving boxes and quick "how have things been?" the ripples ceased, the tension cleared, and were as close to 'us' as we could be in one day. It was the closest we had been since he walked me from the terrace of my engagement party.

"That's the last time I offer to do anything nice again," he says in between hitched exhales and sweat. Five cardboard boxes dot the living room, some gingerly placed between an armchair and the center fireplace. Some half-thrown into the foyer out of dramatic exhaustion. I hadn't exactly asked him to help with the moving process, but leave it to Tidus to insist on exaggerated chivalry.

He pulls a gray hoodie over his head and falls into the cushions of a white couch. I take a seat next to the space above his head and look down to meet an upside-down grin.

"Tired?" I ask, returning the smile.

"Throwing a ball around doesn't make you as strong as you'd imagine."

"I can see that."

His eyes narrow in at me. "I'd like to see you carry those boxes on your own."

"But then I wouldn't have been able to—what did you call it?—admire your strength?"

Tan features broaden into a smile. "Don't act like you didn't like it."

I roll my eyes at the suggestion. He pushes himself upright, stretching with a yawn to lay his arms on the back of the couch, his left hand resting just behind my shoulder.

"Don't worry, Yuna. I don't mind that you were just trying to get me out of my jacket."

I scrunch my nose. "You stink, put your arms down."

"No I don't," he says through a frown and I agree. Tidus smells like cologne and lingering chlorine. He smells expensive, surely labeled, but what hits me hardest is the scent of nostalgia. I smell the salt the sun, the dirt. I smell the cedar in his hair, the camellias beneath his nails. Tidus smells of memories I've filed under: Things That Make My Heart Hurt.

His voice breaks my thoughts. "I like it. It's very Yuna."

"What is?"

"Your place." His eyes follow the deflection of sunlight against dark wood and gray paint.

We sit in the living room of my home, where the room is centered by a stone fireplace and jute rug. I bought the house through a representative while still living in Bevelle. It was a decision hurried by time and my parents' insistence on moving into their vacation estate had I not found anything quickly enough. I was sent an email the day after hiring my agent of a bungalow in the suburbs of Zanarkand, with pictures of a two-story brownstone charmed in history and dark hardwood flooring. Three weeks after signing every paper I needed to sign, I moved into my first house.

"My parents wanted me to get something closer to Baralai," I say.

"Where's that?"

"A-East, by High Park."

A soft 'huh' escapes his lips. "That's not too far from me."

I imagine it. Penthouse, floor-to-ceiling windows, a view of the Zanarkand skyline only an athlete's salary can afford. I voice my thoughts and he laughs in obvious pleasure. Tidus always had a taste for the extravagant in life.

"You'll just have to see it in person," he says, though I have a feeling my imagination isn't too far off.

It's odd to talk about houses with Tidus, houses not far from each other but a mere twenty minutes away. Houses as different from one another as the people occupying them. I don't remember when living across the world from him felt more comfortable than living across town.

"I'm going to make tea," I say. "Would you like some?"

"Sure."

I move past the kitchen's peninsula—the only dividing factor between the kitchen and the living room. My hands reach into white cupboards for mugs to fill as Tidus shuffles behind to claim a stool by the counter.

"So why didn't you pick a place closer to him?" I hear his voice ask. "Or with him?"

I fill a red kettle from the sink and place it on the stove to heat. "I like this area," I reply, thinking back to my debate between moving into inner or outer Zanarkand. Having grown up around politicians, business men, and hired help, distance felt more comfortable in the end.

"And living with Baralai wouldn't be," I glance at Tidus, "proper."

His eyebrows turn up in amusement. "You guys are engaged. Isn't it assumed that ship has sailed?"

I turn around, both to grab teabags from the pantry and hide the redness in my face. Baralai and I haven't kept up with _every_ tradition, but hearing it from Tidus makes the fact more embarrassing than rebellious. He always was more comfortable when it came talking about sex, revealing his personal discoveries to me as subtly as any hormonal teenager could. It never made me uncomfortable, though, so long as I didn't have to return the favor with the boring truth that I was as pure as the driven snow.

"You know my parents—they're traditional," I reply with my attention to the counter. I add a teabag to each mug and shuffle back to find honey and spoons, praying my not-so-obvious avoidance register's in Tidus' daft, yet annoyingly alert to my embarrassment, mind.

Before his low chuckles develop into teasing words the hiss of the kettle drowns his opportunity and I let it run, putting the honey and spoons on the peninsula first. I move the kettle from the stovetop and fill the mugs soon after. Handing one to Tidus, I catch his stare, unnerving and alive in cerulean amusement.

"Whatever you say, Yuna," he replies through his smile and grabs the ceramic from my hand.

Tidus turns his attention to the right, eyeing something I can't see from the kitchen. I take our few seconds of silence to shake off the catatonic state his gaze put me in, all while observing what I've missed in three years. It's subtle, but I see it—a sharper jaw line, a darker scruff—the features of his profile turned harder since my absence. He's a few inches taller and a few contours stronger. Whatever the Abes have been doing to him, it shows. Tidus never used to fit the athletic mold. He was always shorter, leaner, even lankier in comparison to the guys built solid like Wakka. I suppose between a second growth spurt and a career built on athleticism it was only natural he change from the boy I used to live across the street from.

"You should put up more pictures." He turns to meet my stare.

"Um…pictures?"

"Yeah—personal pictures. The walls are too empty."

"They're in those boxes." I nod to the living room.

"Really?" His smile turns mischievous.

"Really." I smile back knowing exactly where the conversation is going.

"Then what are we doing here? Let's take a trip down memory lane."

Tidus moves a box labeled 'Books & Photo Albums' to the space in front of the couch, pushing back the coffee table in the process. I grab our mugs and follow, half dreading the onslaught of unflattering high school photos to come. I will look malnourished and Tidus will look perfect.

"Jackpot," Tidus says as he looks into the open box. I peer over the side into a time machine coated in pubescent dust. Old novels I cherished as a pre-teen meet my sight. Tidus draws first, pulling out books and photo albums, shifting us from our senior years of high school to junior high. His face brightens each year we go back in time and bicker over a foggy memory.

"Oh, Yevon, remember this?" I pull a Polaroid from its protective cover and hand it to Tidus. We stand age five and six behind a table topped in books, his left arm across my shoulders and right fingers holding peace. I smile toothlessly with a blurry book in hand.

"Our carnival?" Tidus asks through a smile. I nod and lean in to the picture. "Most kids make lemonade stands, we put together carnivals."

"What made us think our neighbors would want to rent ten page children's books?"

He shakes his head. "We accepted money in rocks."

"And we had a roller coaster station."

"That old stroller I'd push people on as fast as I could. I think I found it more thrilling than they did."

"Tidus," I look up to his eyes, "we were adorable."

"Still are," he breathes through a smile.

I return the picture to its slot in the photo album and sift through more memories of melted ice cream and blanket forts. Tidus digs through the box again pulling out more books. I hear his laugh cut short with a snort.

"The Pen Pal Exchange?" He holds a bright pink paperback in his hands with the very same title printed in obnoxious teal lettering. I remember the series as one of my favorites and laugh at the memory. I would live vicariously through the characters of the story, daydreaming about boy drama, close girl friends I could tell everything to, and general preteen woes I never experienced.

"I used to love those books," I voice out loud.

"Amy thinks her pen pal, Randolph, is the cutest guy at Balamb Academy," Tidus reads from the back of the book. "And her roommate, Palmer, agrees! In fact, Palmer wants Randolph for herself," he gasps, "and she'll do anything to get him—even if it means breaking up the four Foxes and ruining the pen pal exchange for everyone." I cock my eyebrows at his pause. "Can Amy hold onto Randolph? Does she want to? And can she ever trust Palmer again? Yuna, oh, Yuna, _what _will Amy do?"

I attempt to keep from laughing but the flamboyancy in Tidus' words betrays my rigid lips and I bury my face in embarrassment.

"I was thirteen!" I exclaim behind my hands. "You can't make fun of me for being a kid!"

"You just _have _to let me borrow this."

"Tidus, stop!"

He brings the book to his face and slumps into the couch. I see his shoulders shake up and down and hear the faint sound of a chuckle escalate into something heartier. I fold another strewn book in my hands and slap it across his arm. He lowers the book and wipes a few tears from his eyes.

"I'm sorry, Yuna, I just always assumed the books you ditched me for were more…good."

"More good? Really, Tidus?"

"Yes, more good. Amy would understand."

I roll my eyes with a smile. "You're never going to let this go, are you?"

"Not unless I find something better in here," he says as he reaches back into the box. He pulls another book from the bottom of the pile and asks out loud in growing amusement, "What's this?" I look up in time to recognize the leather book in his hands as the journal I used to write in obsessively as a teenager. I bought it when I was sixteen from an old bookstore I used to frequent on the weekends. It was used for times when thoughts I couldn't tell Tidus turned into written words.

"No!" I yell, leaping across the couch to grab the book from his right hand. His reflexes are too quick and he pulls back, outstretching his arm from my reach.

"Is this a diary?" he asks in excited interest.

"Journal!" I correct.

"From when?" He balances himself on one knee to move further away from my grasp. Every horrifying memory written into words pulses from my ears to my hands, heightening the adrenaline in my body. I force myself onto Tidus, tripping him from the couch onto his back just between the coffee table and an arm chair. His eyes shut from the impact and I grab the book from his limp grasp, pulling it into my chest. I glance below to the sight of Tidus straddled beneath me, the slight rise of his shirt revealing skin and the band of his underwear. I pop up from the floor to the end of the sofa embarrassed by the sight. Embarrassed by my own embarrassment.

"Ouch, Yuna," Tidus says with one hand propped on the floor, the other rubbing the back of his head.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you."

"Uh huh," he quips. "Lucky for you my head is very dense."

I laugh nervously at the insult. "I'm sorry—really."

He rises to sit next to me. I tighten my grip on the journal.

"It's that private, huh?" I nod. "Recent?"

"From my Amy and Randolph days," I correct with a slight lie.

"And let me guess, it's filled with secrets about me," he teases, hitting too close to home for me to find it funny. I try to think of a casual reply but my silence lingers for too long and the moment turns suffocatingly awkward.

Tidus clears his throat. "Sorry, I—I didn't mean to pry through your stuff."

I shake my head behind a sip of tea hoping the warm liquid will force words out of my throat. "It's okay," I manage and tuck the book under a pillow to my right. "It's just a taboo. There's nothing really terrible in there."

Tidus nods his head. "I kind of wish I kept a journal when I was younger. It'd be interesting to look back at everything—who I was, how I thought, what words I couldn't spell correctly at the time."

"Ceiling," I answer his last question. He looks to me through knitted brows. "I remember proofreading an essay you wrote for economics. Every time you wrote 'price ceiling' it was with an 'ie' not 'ei.' I guess I should have told you you were spelling it wrong instead of rewriting it for you."

Tidus looks at me through a mixture of amusement and surprise. His eyebrows are arched in slight disbelief and his smile is tight, failing to fight back laughter. I feel my complexion redden under the stare.

"I took economics in tenth grade," he says. "You remember proofreading something I wrote seven years ago? On _economics_?"

"It was a good essay," I lie behind a smile.

"That's a lie!"

"Okay, it was probably terrible, but at least you were smart enough to come to me about it."

"How would I have survived high school without you?"

"By charming someone else into doing your homework?" I reply, feeling more bitter than I hope it shows.

Tidus pulls another photo album onto his lap and leans into the back of the couch. I watch him stare into the cover of the book with a look of hesitation. He inhales deeply, pauses, and exhales with a curt smile toward me, only to lose any intentions of a reply to the pictures in his hands. I hold my breath at the reaction, at the hope of him looking away from the plastic pages of the album to reveal what thoughts went through his mind in those few seconds. I'm annoyed, afraid, already over thinking his exhale and turning it into something hurtful. The feelings of doubt I feel spiral through my body are painfully familiar. I recognize them as the same feelings I experienced when I left the comforts of childhood and entered a new stage of self-judgment; when Tidus grew up before I did and didn't wait for me to catch up.

Tidus' legs are longer. I reach just below his chin now. His arms are stronger, too. His lung capacity larger, his roots a bit darker. It didn't take me long to notice that Tidus had changed physically. After all, they say boys keep growing until they're twenty-one. Tidus is twenty-two and an adult and that's the reason doubt has crept itself back into my spine. The boy who needed my eyes to double check his spelling doesn't write for school assignments anymore. The boy who didn't know a thing about women's menstrual cycles when I first cried to him about growing up is probably more aware of the female body than most men his age. The boy who came to me with bruises on his heart doesn't respond to my bandages anymore. I look at Tidus flip through the pages of the photo album and land on a picture of myself in my summoner's kimono. I stand with my hands clasped in front, gradient arm sleeves laid against my skirt. It's the day of my first lessons toward becoming a summoner—my seventeenth birthday. I'd spent the day in an obi with a staff and Lady Belgemine's guidance. Tidus wished me a belated birthday the day after in between second and third period.

He shuts the book. "Are you hungry?"

I look up.

"Yuna?"

"Hm?" I blink. "Hungry? Sure—a bit."

Tidus' smile grows. "Let's go to 42nd Diner." I recognize the name. It was a popular place to retreat to at four in the morning after a night of bar-hopping down the same street. I haven't heard the name since high school.

"It'll be like old times."

For who? I think.

Tidus gets up first with a stretch. He reaches down to gather the books taken out of their place from the box. I keep my seat on the sofa with my arm pressed tightly against the pillow-covered journal, watching him finish and move on to push the coffee table back to its place. I guess memory lane isn't as nice as he remembered it to be.

"Ready?" he asks, meeting my stare.

I look away and nod. Coats on, we head outside to his car, a black on black SUV with front lights customized "just"for him. I don't care for cars, but Tidus' excitement is infectious and I smile at every detail of leather and lights he gushes over, pretending to find engines more enthralling than the faint crow's feet around his eyes. The feel of the heater kneads the worry from the body and I exhale, letting the environment of the car erase old thoughts.

"Or we can talk about something you do find interesting," I hear Tidus say. I look over at him glancing between the road and me.

"Sorry," I say through a giggle. "Your car is very interesting to me, Tidus."

"Uh huh," he replies. "That wasn't true when I was sixteen and it still isn't true today."

"In my defense, when you were sixteen your car really _wasn__'__t_ that interesting."

"It was an Aventador, Yuna. It was a matte black Aventador and I was sixteen years old. _Everything_ about that is interesting."

I smile at his growing irritation. The car's price tag could have fed Spira and he crashed it four months after buying it. I never approved of the ostentatious purchase, warning Tidus of the negative publicity it would bring. He was barely old enough to drive and already feeding the media with new ways to compare himself to his father. When I heard he had escaped the accident with nothing more than a damaged ego I wasted no time giving him the 'I told you so' speech.

"I'm glad to see your tastes have matured a little."

He gives me a sideways glance. "You think this is the only car I own."

I shake my head through a smile. Tidus has a reply for everything and I still haven't stopped wondering how to keep up.

"You haven't changed," I say, hoping to provoke his irritation.

"But you have," he says after drawn out silence, voice as uncommitted as the wind.

"Have I?"

He grins. "Haven't you?"

I break away from his stare at the change of the light. The neon sign of 42nd Diner comes into view and I hold a silent prayer for Yevon's timing. I wanted to be the one to tease, to stir discomfort and play the game of friendly banter, but Tidus says five words and I'm mute in fear. I hear my mother click her tongue in disappointment.

It's not that I don't believe I've changed—I know it's obvious and evident and sitting on my left finger. It's not knowing what that change means that thickens my blood in worry; it's realizing that it's disapproval, not indifference, hiding behind the eyes I value most. It's seeing everyone around me change in harmony and losing my grasp on anything we ever had in common.

Tidus parks the car in a space across from the diner. Meter paid, we walk into the restaurant and sit at a booth cornered at the end of the room's bar. I steal glances from customers around our table. They try to hide their excitement but the thrill of a celebrity gracing their otherwise mundane lunches is evident in every stare. I look at Tidus engulfed in his own oblivion. He flips the pages of the diner's menu with the drawstring of his hoodie chewed between white teeth. I smile at the sight.

"Don't try the milkshakes here," he begins with his eyes still focused on the lunch specials, mouth half occupied with cotton. "There's a hole-in-the-wall parlor down the street that trumps every ice cream joint in the city." His eyes glance up to mine and then down to the unopened menu in my hands. "What were you looking at?" he asks through a growing smile.

"Nothing." I open the menu to hide my burning face. "No milkshakes, got it."

Tidus drops the drawstring from his mouth. "You know, I'm used to people staring."

"I wasn't staring."

"I didn't say you were."

I sigh and place the menu on the table. "How?"

"How what?"

"How are you used to it?"

He sighs and tilts his head with a look of impatience. "You of all people should know that answer."

Before I can reply the waitress interrupts with our glasses of water and asks if we're ready to order. Tidus looks to me. "You go first," I say and open the menu to pick something quickly.

"Tell me, Melinda, is the turkey triple decker as good as the menu says?" Tidus asks the waitress with a hint of flirtation that isn't lost on anyone. She giggles at the use of her first name and nods.

"Menus don't lie," Melinda replies.

"And I'm guessing you don't either?"

"Depends on who's asking." Her words come out like a purr.

Tidus' smile widens. "One turkey triple decker, no coleslaw, extra fries."

"And for you?" the dark-haired woman asks in my direction.

"A tuna melt," I grumble and shove the menu to my left.

"Thank you, Melinda," Tidus says to the waitress' retreating form. I catch him size her up before looking back to my blank expression.

"What?"

"You didn't answer my question."

"Which was what again?" he asks as he strips the paper off of two straws and places them in our cups.

"Thanks." I take a sip. I know he remembers.

"We grew up with famous parents, Yuna. Aren't _you_ used to it by now?"

"My parents' fame? Sure. But I'm not the one on magazine covers."

Tidus smiles at the comment. "You've been keeping tabs on me?"

"No." I look down into my cup. "It's unavoidable."

"You make me sound like the plague."

"I'm sure some people feel that way," I mutter into my straw. I look up in time to catch the hurt in Tidus' eyes before he turns to watch something through the window. "I'm sorry, Tidus. I didn't mean that."

"It's been three years, Yuna." His eyes return to mine. "I'm better than my dad was and I'm not sorry for whatever attention it brings."

"I know," I soften. "And I'm happy for you, Tidus. I really am."

I scold myself inwardly for being uncharacteristically short. I'm not used to being on the offense, but Tidus' presence has a way of heightening my emotions more than I'd like to openly admit. Before any reasonable explanation stumbles from my mouth Tidus' voice fills the air in its usual ease.

"Let's see," he begins as he reclines into the booth with both hands behind his head, "I get signed by the Abes and you move to Bevelle. I get good and then I get _really_ good, which, in turn, makes me a little more famous than others. I buy a few ostentatious cars, as you so kindly put it, and maybe mack on some waitresses here and there. I think that about summarizes the last three years of my life. Your turn."

"You hit on waitresses on the regular?" I counter.

"Waitresses, models—it's all pretty faces and futile attempts."

I laugh at the image. "You never were good at talking to girls."

"No," he leans in, "but I'm good at all the other stuff."

I roll my eyes for what feels like an infinitely growing number of times. "Tidus, please."

"I'm sorry," he offers through a chuckle, "but I like making you uncomfortable."

"I see that," I reply through knitted brows.

"So," he plays with the straw in his cup, rotating it clockwise and then counterclockwise, "your turn."

"My turn?" I ask with my attention stuck on the spinning straw. He stops and rests his hand beside the cup forcing me to move my eyes and meet his own. I look at him, at the rigid muscles beneath his expression, the endless shades of blue veiled behind dark lashes and sobriety—the look of need he bore for me too often and too rarely at the same time when we were younger. I exhale and give in.

"Where do I even begin?" I ask rhetorically.

"How about here?" He taps my left hand with his finger. I touch the ring instinctively with my right hand, smoothing over the contours of the diamond and its white gold band.

"I'm getting married," I say quietly, mentally kicking myself for the obvious reply. Melinda interrupts yet again—a role I think she's better at than waitressing. She hands us our plates of food and lingers for Tidus' attention. When he doesn't comply, his interest still glued to my half-complete response, she places the check on the table and walks away. The rejection elicits a small victory party in my mind.

Tidus bites into his sandwich. "I know that," he says through mangled turkey.

"We met at a party my parents threw for my birthday," I say after a bite of my own sandwich. "He was sweet, my parents approved, and three months after dating he proposed."

"Love at first sight," Tidus replies. I hear the sound of doubt hang to the end of his words, his slight inflection of a question I choose to ignore.

I take a fry and say, "I want you to meet him."

"I have."

Now it's my turn for the impatience. "One handshake doesn't count."

The blond athlete stuffs a handful of fries into his mouth with an exaggerated shrug. Tidus was always protective of me in his own carefree way. I didn't date or rebel. I was low-key enough for him to play the role of protective brother from a comfortable enough distance. I smile at the thought of Tidus questioning Baralai's intentions, but as quickly as it comes I dismiss it. I'm engaged; there's no time for that.

"Well," Tidus says after clearing his throat, "lucky for me I have the rest of your life to get to know the guy, right?"

"Right." I smile, hoping the gesture will sweeten my voice and ability to persuade. "But I'd like it to happen sooner rather than later."

"Yeah, yeah." He waves his hand dismissively. "And I'd like it if you came with me to a bonfire this week. Tit for tat…or something like that."

"A bonfire?" I inquire.

"Yeah, it's kind of tradition. Just before the training season gets serious we like to gather around to relax and forget about blitzball for one night, you know? It sort of restores our energy."

"I've…never been to a bonfire."

"Are you serious?" he asks through wide eyes, dropping the rest of his sandwich from his hand. "Sometimes I swear we went to separate high schools."

I want to laugh at the irony in his words but refrain and bite into my sandwich instead.

"What do you do at them?" I finally ask.

"Well," he pushes his empty plate away, "first we get a huge pit usually supplied by Kiryl. Then we light things on fire, sometimes getting a little pyro-crazy in the process. But once the fire's big enough, we sit around and enjoy. Sometimes we get festive and make s'mores, other times we burn pictures of ex-girlfriends—again, normally supplied by Kiryl. And of course, we get really drunk."

"Fire and alcohol?" I pull back at the image. "Sounds dangerous."

Tidus laughs. "I promise you it really is a blast. Especially when it's cold out and the beach tide is high."

I imagine Tidus, eighteen years old, recently drafted and beaming with the kind of light that takes you by force before you realize you, too, are elated to just be living. Flames dance in his eyes, licking and playing with happiness dressed under cerulean silk. There's beer, there's laughter, there are girls competing for attention more explicitly than I ever could. I want to be seventeen again. I want Tidus to invite me to his bonfire. I want to lose my inhibition and laugh at juvenile competition.

"Okay," I say, any reason to decline escaped from my mind.

"Really?" His face brightens. "You won't regret it!"

I bite the last of my sandwich in reply.

Tidus pays for the bill despite my protests. "It's six gil. I've spent more on gum," he offers and I shut up. We're back in the confines of leather and seat belts. I rest my head against the passenger windowpane, allowing the cool glass to numb my thoughts. Tidus remains quiet the entire ride, only speaking to ask for my approval on a radio station. He settles on Zanarkand Public Radio.

"You listen to this?" I ask, the surprise in my voice more than obvious.

He shrugs. "I don't like to watch the news on TV."

Conversation picks up between two anchors on recent elections in Guadosalam—on the re-election of it's long-standing maester. I hear the concern, the parallels of dictatorship and supposed democracy, only this time it isn't the faceless voices of newscasters ringing through my ears, but the sound of my fiancé stuck in a world of politics he pretends to evade.

"He's…not a people person, you know?"

I flick a brow. The cackle of burning wood sings in the background. We sit limbs tangled in more limbs and bursts of disheveled cushions. A debate heats the screen of the living room's television and I'm bold enough to draw a conclusion.

"Sometimes when a person is so brilliant, so caught up in the big picture," he animates with two hands, "they lose touch with the intimacies of life."

"Like compassion?"

"Yuna…"

"I know, I know. What do _I_ know of Spira's politics?"

He sighs in frustration. Maybe it's not fair for me to put words in his mouth, but neither is it for him to dismiss my opinion.

"That's not what I said."

"But you are defending him, are you not?"

"I just think…he knows a lot more about running a city than we do."

I switch the station.

Tidus silently asks what's wrong with a quick glance of furrowed brows. I pretend not to notice and hum to a song I don't know. He turns onto my block, the brown brick of my home coming into view, stretching across the tint-less glass of the front window.

"Thank you, Tidus," I say as I gather my purse from the car floor.

"Eight-thirty Thursday night." The statement doesn't register at first. "For the bonfire," he clarifies. "I'll pick you up at eight-thirty."

The high schooler in me wants to ask why he keeps inviting me if he doesn't mean it, but I nod instead, smile, and open the door to leave the car. I'm halfway up the stoop when I hear Tidus' voice call to me from behind. I turn to find the passenger window rolled down and his body leaned over against a restricting seat belt.

"Layer up! It's supposed to dip a few degrees from here until then."

I tell him I'll remember and then retreat behind the entryway's single red door.

They're back. Relentless. Unearthed two weeks ago and with little resolve to ever disappear again. I drop my purse in the foyer, walk into the living, and collapse onto the couch.

* * *

><p>Author's Note: I rewrote this chapter SIX times. I've never been more ready to move on since my last break up. *ba dum tss* Also, who caught the FF8 reference? I may sprinkle those in here and there because damn it Square Enix owns all of my interests.<p> 


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